8 Epic Performances By Denzel Washington

3) The Hurricane

Keeping in the tradition of great actors like Brando and De Niro, Denzel Washington underwent the necessary rite of passage by playing a boxer in The Hurricane in 1999. This movie demonstrates some of the peculiarities of Washington’s acting style. He comes out of the theater, and so he’s one of those actors—another one who comes to mind is Kevin Spacey—that has found this sweet spot between that necessarily demonstrative style required for the stage and the understated expressiveness that the intimacy of movie close-ups allows for.

That is to say, he can play really big and really small, obvious and subtle, often at the same time or at various points over the course of a movie. I think of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the movie version of The Producers as an example of stage performances not translating all that well onto a screen.

This comes to mind when I consider The Hurricane because much of Denzel’s performance is laid out for all to see. He goes completely for broke. Playing a man desperately trying to get out of prison, this is smart, and appropriate. It may take someone as comfortable on a stage as Washington to pull off this monologue, or dialogue with himself, that he delivers as Rubin Carter in solitary confinement. Other times we see him unable to contain his emotions behind the visitation glass; we can’t hear him, but we know exactly what he’s saying. It’s a whirlwind performance, and one of his career’s very best.